


Third Chances

by Jadzia_Bear



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Demisexual Character, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Hugh | Third of Five Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, demisexual Hugh | Third of Five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzia_Bear/pseuds/Jadzia_Bear
Summary: Hugh lives, and Elnor is overjoyed.Just my take on a fix-it for these sweet boys. Elnor cares for Hugh as he recovers on la Sirena.
Relationships: Elnor/Hugh | Third of Five
Comments: 14
Kudos: 52





	Third Chances

**Author's Note:**

> What happened to the Artifact in this version of events, you ask? I don’t know, I just work here. My job is to deliver the fluff, and that’s (hopefully) what I’ve done.
> 
> The title is a riff on Second Chances, one of my favourite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Hugh’s eyelids flutter open to reveal a sick bay of some sort. His head is foggy and his limbs feel like lead. He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep but it feels like he could use another ten hours at least.

“Hugh.”

A gentle voice beside him draws his attention. He can’t help but smile a little when he sees that it’s Elnor.

“You’re in the sick bay on la Sirena, the ship Picard and I arrived on,” the young Romulan explains. His warm hand cradles one of Hugh’s, his thumb rubbing lightly over the back of it. “You’re safe now.”

Hugh pulls in a shaky breath, marvelling at the fact that he’s still able to do so.

“How do you feel?” Elnor asks.

Hugh reaches up with his free hand to touch his throat, finding the life-threatening wound completely healed.

“Like I’ve been hit by a shuttle,” he says, his voice gravelly, “but also alive, which is a pleasant surprise.”

Elnor smiles at this.

A bearded man holding a medical tricorder approaches the biobed.

“Those nanoprobes of yours proved to be very useful,” the man comments as he runs a scan. “I’m Emil, your friendly neighbourhood EMH.”

“Will I be in here long, doctor?” Hugh asks. “No offence, but I’ve already spent enough of my life laid out on a slab.”

After all the procedures involved in being both assimilated and de-assimilated, getting poked, prodded and scanned has become one of his least favourite things.

“Could he be moved to a cabin?” Elnor asks the EMH.

“Theoretically,” Emil replies, closing the tricorder and tapping it against his palm. “But he still needs someone to keep an eye on him for at least the next few hours—”

“I’ll do it,” Elnor says immediately. “I’ll do everything for him.”

The EMH considers this for a moment. “Is that alright with you?” he asks Hugh.

It occurs to Hugh then, as he looks into Elnor’s honest, earnest face that he’s only known the young man a short time. Yet he would trust him—has already trusted him—with his life.

Hugh nods.

Emil shrugs. “All right then. Keep this on,” he says, pointing to a small monitoring device attached to Hugh’s chest that he hadn’t even realised was there. “I’ll pop in to check on you periodically.”

The EMH vanishes and Hugh pushes himself up into a sitting position, even though it makes his head spin. He slowly swings his feet to the floor, but when he starts to put weight on them, his knees go rubbery so he stops.

“Lean on me,” Elnor says, slipping an arm behind Hugh and easing him to his feet. Somehow strong and gentle all at once, Elnor supports him as they begin their slow trek towards the cabins.

* * *

“What do you need?” Elnor asks as they enter the room. “Water? Something to eat?”

Hugh shakes his head. “Just sleep.”

In a smooth manoeuvre Hugh doesn’t quite track, Elnor flips the covers back and supports Hugh as he sits down on the bed.

Before Hugh can even think about the fact that he needs to try and get his shoes off, Elnor is kneeling before him and slipping them off his feet.

Then the young man steps away from the bed and Hugh’s head sinks down onto the cool pillow. A few moments later Elnor reappears at his side with a glass of water that he sets on the bedside table for later. He pulls the covers over Hugh and tucks them around him, and Hugh doesn’t know what to do in the face of such kindness and caring so he closes his eyes.

With no family, no childhood memories and very few significant others, no one in his life has ever taken care of him like this before, yet Elnor doesn’t stop there.

Hugh feels the gentle pressure of a hand smoothing his hair back, then a light kiss on his forehead. “Rest, Hugh. I’ll be right here.”

Hugh keeps his eyes closed to hide the gathering wetness.

He falls asleep to the quiet sounds of Elnor moving around the room.

* * *

At some point in the night, Hugh wakes. The lights are down low and Elnor is watching over him, lying on top of the covers on the other side of the bed.

“The EMH just left,” Elnor explains in a soft voice. “He removed the monitor and said your scans are fine, that you just need rest now.”

Hugh nods through a sleepy haze.

Not really sure where the words come from, he says, “You can get under the covers if you want.”

It’s the least he can do after all Elnor’s done for him, to let the young man get some proper sleep.

Elnor strips down to his pants and climbs in under the covers.

Hugh’s eyes drift closed again.

* * *

When Hugh wakes in the morning he’s feeling much better. A touch of fog still clings to his brain, and the faintest ache lingers in his muscles, but he feels pretty good for someone who technically died yesterday. If being liberated from the Borg was his second chance at life, he supposes this must be his third.

There’s more contributing to his feelings of wellbeing than just the expert treatment of the ship’s EMH, though.

Pressed against his back, with every available limb wrapped around him, is Elnor.

There’s something very… restorative, he decides, about being held like this, cradled and protected by Elnor’s whole being, even in his sleep.

Obviously it’s just muscle memory on Elnor’s part, his body unconsciously treating Hugh like one of Elnor’s regular bed partners. No doubt he’ll move away as soon as he wakes up. Hugh hopes his new friend won’t feel embarrassed.

He shouldn’t have worried. When Elnor wakes, he only snuggles closer.

“How are you feeling?” he murmurs sleepily, sliding a warm hand up to the centre of Hugh’s chest.

“Much better,” he replies, his voice sounding too loud in the quiet room.

Hugh isn’t used to this much intimacy and it’s making his heart rate go up. For reasons he can’t articulate, he doesn’t want Elnor to feel it.

“In fact, I think I might have a shower,” he says, starting to get up.

Elnor quickly comes round to his side of the bed and wraps an arm around Hugh like he did yesterday, helping him walk to the bathroom.

A few steps in, Hugh realises that he really doesn’t need the help, and in any case, it's—a lot, being pressed to Elnor’s side when the young man has no shirt on.

But before he can decide to say anything, they’re already at the bathroom. Elnor turns on the shower, then promptly turns back and lifts Hugh’s shirt over his head for him.

Hugh flushes. What is happening?

Elnor reaches for the fastenings on Hugh’s pants, but Hugh catches Elnor’s hands in his own.

“It’s okay, I’ve got this.”

“Okay,” Elnor says easily. He checks the temperature of the water again before heading out of the room. “Let me know if you need anything,” he says, and closes the door behind him.

For a moment Hugh just listens to the rushing sound of the water, then he finishes undressing and steps under the warm spray.

The water beating on his skin feels good, both soothing and rejuvenating.

He tips his face up into the spray as he thinks about what just happened.

That wasn’t just a flush of self-consciousness or embarrassment he felt when Elnor reached for him—it was arousal.

He hasn’t experienced that feeling in a very long time. He thought maybe he never would again.

It’s nice to know that he still can, not that it makes any difference here. Elnor may be rather hands-on, but it’s just that he has different boundaries to Hugh. A young man as handsome and sweet and kind as Elnor could date anyone he wanted, he certainly wouldn’t be interested in someone like him.

He gets out of the shower and dries off. By the time he’s put on fresh clothes and cleaned his teeth, he’s feeling much more like himself.

He steps out of the bathroom to find Elnor sitting cross-legged on the bed. Now that Hugh is actually letting himself notice, he acknowledges that Elnor really is exceptionally beautiful. With his bare chest and sleep-mussed hair, there’s an air of softness and vulnerability about him as he sits there among the rumpled bedclothes, staring at Hugh with a look he can’t identify.

“Elnor?” Hugh asks, glancing down to check that he didn’t forget some vital piece of clothing.

“It just fills me with joy and relief to see you alive and well,” he explains, looking up at Hugh with those big, brown eyes. “I was overwhelmed with grief yesterday when I thought you had…” his expression pinches, “died in my arms.”

It hits Hugh how traumatic this all must have been for Elnor and he can’t believe it didn’t occur to him earlier. Just because Elnor was trained to use a sword didn’t mean that he was nonchalant about death.

He steps forward. “Elnor, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise what it must have been like for you.”

In a move almost faster than he can see, Elnor is off the bed and in his arms. He holds the brave, young man close.

His heart rate kicks up at their closeness but this time Hugh doesn’t care so much if Elnor can feel it where their chests are pressed together. Comforting him is more important right now.

Elnor nestles his face against Hugh’s neck and they stay that way for a long time, Hugh stroking a hand up and down the warm skin of Elnor’s back.

If only this never had to end.

“But you’re alive,” Elnor murmurs, lips brushing the sensitive skin of Hugh’s neck, “and I am overjoyed.”

Elnor starts pulling away and Hugh resigns himself to letting go, but he only leans back far enough to be able to look into Hugh’s eyes. Elnor’s gaze roams his face and Hugh is painfully aware of his implants, his mismatched eyes, his scarred cheek.

But maybe that’s not what Elnor sees, because his eyes settle on Hugh’s lips, and then he kisses him.

Hugh doesn’t understand, but he kisses back fervently, cherishing every press of Elnor’s soft lips, the heat of his tongue, the feel of his slender hips under Hugh’s hands.

“What are you doing?” Hugh asks breathlessly when Elnor finally breaks the kiss.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, it’s just,” Hugh’s gaze falls to Elnor’s chest, “people don’t usually kiss me, or even touch me, for that matter,” he confesses.

“Then I’m all the more grateful that I get to,” Elnor responds, tipping Hugh’s chin back up with a crooked finger.

“But why?” Hugh asks, barely above a whisper.

He has to know what Elnor sees in him, and yet he’s afraid he’s asking a question that has no answer.

“So many reasons,” Elnor says, his face as open and honest as always. “You’re brave and compassionate. You gave yourself heart and soul to a hopeless cause in order to help others. Plus you’re cute,” he adds, “and I’m mesmerised by your beautiful eyes.”

Hugh huffs a laugh. It would be a laugh of disbelief if not for the fact that it’s impossible to doubt Elnor’s sincerity.

He pulls Elnor in close and holds him tight. “I’m so glad you found me, Elnor.”

Elnor squeezes him back. “Can I kiss you some more now?”

Hugh laughs again. “Please.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please know that comments and kudos always make my day :)


End file.
